Movie Review - 'Dear John'

Dear John Starring Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, and Richard Jenkins Directed by Lasse Hallström Rated PG-13

Nicholas Sparks doesn't write stories as much as he does blueprints. From The Notebook to A Walk to Remember to Nights in Rodanthe, Sparks creates novels that repeat the same basic structures and if it works once, it should work again. His audience, primarily women, eat this stuff up: Star-crossed lovers with a world coming between them and then, some kind of big kapow that should make you cry. Very often, this kapow is the death of a main character, and no matter how you slice it, that's just a cheap ploy if you use it over and over again. The latest spark-free Sparks adaptation is Dear John, which, like many of its predecessors, involves people finding true love in a matter of days and writing letters to bridge the impossible distance that keeps them apart. It isn't exactly the same story and in fact, there are some good moments here, but the highlights are exactly that; this is ultimately not too memorable. The John of the title - so named because of the dreaded letters from home to a soldier away at war when a girlfriend finally moves on - is played by Channing Tatum. He's a mixed bag. Often, as in last year's Fighting and G.I. Joe, he's awful. Truly awful. But if you go back to A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, there's some talent there. So he's a classic example of only being as good as his material. That's not tremendous news here, of course, although he does command a little respect in the film's most touching scene. He's a soldier on leave, visiting his father in North Carolina. Dad (Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins) might be autistic. It's strongly hinted at without being diagnosed in the film, but in addition to giving Jenkins a little bit more to work with as an actor, it provides for some tension between father and son, although realistically, there's no emnity from Dad. During his stay back home, John meets Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) on the beach. Immediately, and in a way common for the movies, they're instantly inseparable. And that's fine. It's economical for a romantic film, and we understand that it has to happen. But you'd like it to have some reason behind it. The worst example is Maid in Manhattan, in which Ralph Fiennes and J-Lo take some dogs for a walk and realize they can't live without each other, just because the movie demands that they fall in love. This one's not that bad, but though The Notebook takes a beating in some movie discussions, that's one aspect the story gets dead right. Part of that is the chemistry between the actors, which isn't as strong here. In fact, if the romance were in the back seat and this was more about John and his father, it would probably be a stronger film overall. Seyfried (Mamma Mia) is effective enough, although there's very little to her character for the first hour-plus. When John goes back to the Army, months before 9/11, the couple makes a vow to write letters to each other constantly. We don't learn a damn thing about them through any of this. Instead, it's just different ways of saying "I can't wait to see you again." It's no wonder, then, John gets a Dear John letter. Although the third act contains a rather unnecessary development to cause even more strife (the "kapow" from earlier), it does get us a resolution between John and his father, and that is without question the best two or three minutes of this movie. But that wouldn't sell as many tickets. Dear John is OK for a Nicholas Sparks movie but if you're not a fan of abusively manipulative and almost obsessively repetitive romantic tragedies, you'll probably tire of this rather quickly. I had some expectations that Tatum and Seyfried might really show us something, but neither is entirely on the mark, packing a punch when they know they have the big scenes and going through the motions the rest of the time. So, watch The Notebook again. Better story, better performances, better film.

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